Yellow Dog Contract

by Thomas Ross

“Not that I know of.”

  “Would you, if you were asked?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m trying to quit,” I said.

  “Who’s he?” I heard a young female reporter ask one of the greybeards.

  “Longmire. Harvey. He used to be a hotshot campaign manager.”

  “I think he’s kinda cute,” she said.

  “He’s married.”

  “Who gives a shit?”

  Inside the house we were met by a pale young man who wore a slightly harassed expression plus the rather glazed look of someone who’s trying to think of three dozen things at once. He probably was.

  “This way, Senator, and Mr.—uh—Longmire, isn’t it?”

  “Longmire,” I said.

  “We’ll go right in,” he said and started off down the center hall that was lined with some highly polished antiques and a number of quite interesting paintings. I thought I spotted a Miró, but I wasn’t sure.

  “Who owns this place?” I asked Corsing as we followed the young man down the hall.

  “It belongs to our former ambassador to Italy who very much hopes that he’ll be our next ambassador to England.”

  “His wife’s got the money, right?”

  “Right.”

  The man who wanted to be president was seated in his shirt-sleeves behind a large carved desk in a book-lined room that must have been the library. “Hello, Bill,” he said as he got up and stretched out his hand. The Senator shook it and half-turned toward me. “You know Harvey, of course.”

  “Harvey,” the Candidate said, “it’s good to see you again.”

  “My pleasure,” I said.

  “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” he said. “Six years?”

  “Eight, I think. In Chicago.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “Chicago. Wasn’t that a fucking mess.

  “Wasn’t it though.”

  The Candidate turned toward the pale young man who was scribbling something into a notebook. He scribbled furiously as if he were afraid that he would forget it before he got it written down. “Jack, have they delivered that lunch we ordered yet?”

  “Yes, sir, it just got here.”

  “Can you have somebody serve it in here?”

  “Right away,” the young man said and turned to go.

  “Wait a minute,” the Candidate said. He looked at Corsing and me. “We’ve got a no-booze rule around here, but I think we could scare up a couple of bottles of beer seeing that it’s August and you gentlemen look thirsty.”

  “A beer would be fine—since it’s August,” Corsing said.

  “Harvey?” the Candidate said.

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  He turned back to the pale young man. “You got that, Jack?”

  Jack nodded. “Two beers and one Tab,” he said and left.

  The Candidate gave his stomach a gentle whack. “I’ve got to keep it down.” He moved over to a burnished oval table and said, “Let’s sit down over here. We’ll eat while we talk.”

  He sat at one end of the table and Corsing and I sat on either side of him. I took out my tin box and started to roll a cigarette. The Candidate got up, went over to his desk, and came back with an ashtray that he slid across the table to me. I thanked him.

  “Okay,” he said, “let me tell you what I’ve got and how I got it and then we’ll see whether it fits in with what you guys have.”

  I nodded and so did Corsing.

  “There’s this very bright kid on our staff,” the Candidate went on, “who’s helping handle the labor side of things. About two or three weeks ago he started to get some strange reports—except that they didn’t look strange at the time, not until he put them all together. Analyzed them. Then he wrote up a report and tried to get it to me, but you know how campaigns work.”

  “Somebody shortstopped it,” I said.

  “Yeah. Not intentionally, but nevertheless it fell between the cracks somewhere. Well, I started getting a howl from here and a squeal from there and so I asked our guy who’s supposedly our liaison with labor what the hell’s going on. He fished the kid’s report out from between the cracks, dusted it off, and tried to pass it off to me as being freshly written. Well, it looked grim, but what the hell, everything looks grim in a campaign like this. But something about the report bothered me so I asked to see the person who’d written it.”

  The Candidate ran a hand through his hair that had a lot more grey in it than it did eight years before. “Well, the kid comes in and despite the fact that nobody’s encouraged him to, he’s prepared an update on his previous report. And the update doesn’t look grim, it looks like the blueprint for an unmitigated disaster. If the kid’s information is right, the public employees of ten of the largest cities in the country will go on strike during the first week in September which I don’t have to tell you is just two months away from November second, a date that’s of some importance to me and mine. How’s that jibe with what you’ve got, Harvey?”

  “Pretty well,” I said, “except that I think it’s going to be twelve cities rather than ten.”

  “Christ,” the Candidate said. “What’s your source?”

  “I just got in from St. Louis. There’s going to be a strike in St. Louis unless I’m very much mistaken. They’ve locked themselves into their position and they won’t budge. Or so I’m told.”

  “What do they want?”

  “For starters, a four-day week. For dessert, a twenty percent pay raise.”

  The Candidate looked at Corsing. “Did you know about this?”

  Corsing nodded. “Some of it,” he said. “Not the details though.”

  “What about elsewhere?” the Candidate asked me.

  “There seems to be a pattern. After Arch Mix disappeared the union hired two hundred new guys and gave them International Organizers as their title.”

  “Two hundred?”

  “Two hundred,” I said. “They fanned out over the country and the first thing they did was dump the local union leadership in the dozen big cities that I mentioned. Money seems to be no problem. They bribed and bought where they had to and if that didn’t work, they used muscle. From what I saw in St. Louis, they’re a pretty mean bunch. Once they had the local leadership dumped, bribed, or intimidated, they took over the negotiations. Except that they don’t really want a settlement, they want a strike.”

  The Candidate nodded. “You’re sure about the bribes and the muscle?”

  “I’m positive about it in St. Louis. Somebody else is checking it out in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and probably Baltimore. He’s due back tomorrow.”

  “Do I know him?”

  “Uh-huh, you know him. It’s Ward Murfin.”

  The Candidate started to say something else, but before he could the door opened and a young woman of about twenty-two came in carrying a large tray that was covered with a white cloth. Shepherding her across the room was Jack, the pale young man with the slightly glazed look.

  She set the tray down on the table and then spread a white linen cloth. The Candidate, ever mindful of every vote, said, “How’re you today, June?”

  The young woman smiled and said, “Just fine, sir.”

  She served the two beers to Corsing and me and the Tab to the Candidate. Then she whisked away the cloth that covered the tray. Lunch, I saw, was going to consist of three McDonald’s Big Mac hamburgers. With french fries.

  The Candidate served us himself. Then he took a big bite out of his hamburger. Once he was chewing properly June and Jack left. I took a swallow of beer.

  Before taking another bite of his hamburger, the Candidate said, “I talked to Meany.”

  “What’d he say?” Corsing asked.

  “He said it’s a question of autonomy. That was on the record. Off the record, he said that the AFL-CIO’s relations, meaning his, hadn’t been too good with the PEU when Arch Mix was there and now that he’s disappeared, they’re even worse. He said that
there wasn’t anything he could do unless he received a specific complaint, which he hasn’t, and even if he did he wasn’t sure that he could do anything to keep them from going out.”

  “If he did anything, the PEU might take a walk,” I said. “That would mean that the AFL-CIO would lose its fastest-growing union. Ninety thousand new members a year, the last I heard.”

  “That won’t happen,” the Candidate said. “Well, after I talked to Meany I got hold of one of our guys who used to have pretty good connections with the PEU. Excellent connections, in fact. So he went down to see this new guy that’s taken over—the black guy—uh—”

  “Gallops,” I said.

  “That’s right, Gallops. Warner B. Gallops. Well, as I was saying, this guy who supposedly was in tight with the PEU went down to see Gallops to ask what the hell was going on and to point out that if they struck the ten biggest cities in the country, then I’m going to be stone cold dead on November second.”

  “What’d Gallops say?” I said and took a bite of my hamburger. It was cold.

  “Well, he said something and then he did something,” the Candidate said. “First—and I think I’m quoting accurately now—he told my guy, ‘It’s none of your fucking business what we do,’ and then he threw him out on his ass.”

  “Literally?” Corsing asked.

  “Close enough.”

  I took a bite of one of my french fries. It was cold, too. “You’re in trouble,” I said.

  The Candidate nodded, put what was left of his Big Mac down, wiped his fingers on a paper napkin, and took a folded sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket. He unfolded it and put on a pair of glasses. I noticed that they were bifocals. “This is the latest poll,” he said. “The private one. Right now we’re running forty-six forty-four with twelve percent undecided. I’ve got the forty-four. That means I’m up one percent from last week. They say we’re going to peak the last week in October. That’d be just about right, wouldn’t it, Harvey?”

  “It would be perfect,” I said.

  “But if Gallops pulls off these strikes, we’re not going to have to worry about peaking, are we?”

  “No,” I said, “if he does that you can start writing your concession speech. Maybe something witty and poignant like Stevenson had in ’52.”

  The Candidate stuck a fistful of french fries into his mouth and chewed rapidly. He seemed hungry or maybe he found food a comfort and a solace. Many do. Still chewing he looked at Corsing and then at me.

  “I don’t have to tell you what the reaction to these strikes would be, do I?” he said and then went on before we could say yes or no. “I don’t have to describe how the voters feel about strikes by teachers and cops and garbage collectors and hospital workers and what have you. And I don’t have to tell you what frame of mind the voters are going to be in on November second if they haven’t had their garbage picked up in two months, or worse—much worse—maybe they’ve had a friend or relative die because there wasn’t enough help to go around in a hospital. Or maybe their kid, or the neighbor’s kid, got hit by a car at a school crossing because there wasn’t anybody there to help him across the street because whoever was supposed to be there was out on strike. I don’t have to tell you who they’re going to vote for if something like that happens, do I?”

  “No,” I said, “you don’t.”

  “I’ll tell you anyhow,” he said. “In the big cities they’ll vote us out and them in.”

  “That’s a safe prediction,” Corsing said.

  “Okay,” the Candidate said, “who’s back of it?”

  “That’s simple,” I said. “Find out what happened to Arch Mix and you’ll probably find who’s back of it.”

  “The FBI isn’t having much luck, is it?”

  “Not much,” I said. “None, in fact.”

  “You going to eat your french fries?” the Candidate said.

  “No.”

  “Good.” He reached over and took three or four and crammed them into his mouth. “Gallops must know,” he said.

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “He may be just a tool.”

  “The unwitting kind?”

  “Who knows? Maybe somebody’s paying him a little money. Or maybe he’s just ambitious. Try this one on. Suppose Gallops came to you about September first and said, ‘There won’t be any strike if you put it in writing that you’ll make me Secretary of Labor.’”

  The Candidate didn’t reject the idea out of hand. He thought about it first as he reached for the rest of my french fries. “I’ll deny it if it ever gets out of this room, but if that were to be the price, I might agree to pay it.”

  “I don’t blame you,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think somebody’s steering Gallops.”

  “Them?” he asked.

  “No,” Corsing said. “They wouldn’t do it. They’re too busy trying to make everyone forget Watergate.”

  “If I didn’t know better,” the Candidate said, “I’d say that some of those nuts out at the CIA are up to their old tricks.”

  “How about the Mafia or whatever they’re calling it nowadays?” I said.

  The Candidate thought about it. “What’s their angle?”

  “Extortion,” I said. “The cities will leave them alone to operate wide open in exchange for no strikes.”

  “Any proof?”

  “None.”

  He shook his head. “Put it down to paranoia, if you want to, but I think the stakes are higher than that. I think they’re playing for the presidency.”

  “Have you got any idea of who they might be?” I said.

  He shook his head again. “None. Do you?”

  “It’s somebody with a lot of money,” I said, “although they might not know how it’s being spent. In fact, they might not want to know.”

  “That’s cryptic,” he said.

  “It was meant to be.”

  “You’ve got an idea?”

  “Possibly,” I said, “but that’s all it is.”

  “But there’s a chance?”

  “I’m not sure it’s even that.”

  “Can you give me a hint?”

  “No.”

  “Harvey?”

  “Yes?”

  “If whatever you’re up to somehow prevents these strikes, I’ll be grateful.”

  “I should hope so,” I said.

  “How’d you like to be White House press secretary?”

  “Not very much,” I said. “Not any at all, in fact.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  AFTER I DROPPED Senator Corsing off at his office I found a pay phone and called Slick. Once again I got his answering service who informed me that he now was expected to return around four. I looked at my watch and saw that it was one-forty. I thought a moment, then picked up the phone book and looked up a number. The number that I looked up belonged to Douglas Chanson, the headhunter. With much reluctance, he agreed to give me ten minutes at two o’clock.

  If I had to go down to an office every morning, which is a recurring bad dream that I have about two or three times a month, I suppose I would prefer it to be like the one that Douglas Chanson had on Jefferson Place, a one-block street that runs between Eighteenth and Nineteenth just north of M Street.

  It’s a quiet block consisting mostly of narrow, brightly painted, three-story townhouses with a number of trees and lots of small, highly polished brass plates that discreetly announce the names of those who do business there. There were quite a few lawyers on the block, but some of the brass plates simply gave a name with no indication of the profession that went with it, and I liked to think that these unnamed professions were mysterious and perhaps even a bit nefarious.

  Douglas Chanson Associates had such a brass plate above the doorbell of a three-story townhouse that was painted a rich cream color with black trim. I tried the door, but it was locked, so I rang the bell. There was an answering buzz and I went in and found myself in what probably used to be the foyer but was now a reception
area presided over by a young, slim brown-haired woman with green eyes.

  She looked at me and then at her watch. “You’d be Mr. Longmire.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re early.”

  “To be early is to be on time,” I said, a little sententiously.

  “To be early means you’ll have to wait a few minutes,” she said. “Here. Fill this out.” She moved a small form across her desk. I picked it up and read it. The form wanted my name, my spouse’s name, my occupation, my business address, my home address, my business and home phones, and my Social Security number.

  I put it back down on the desk. “The name is Harvey Longmire,” I said. “And I’m not looking for a job.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Mr. Chanson still likes the information for his records.”

  “My address is a post office box, my phone is unlisted, I don’t remember my Social Security number, and this week my occupation is beekeeper.”

  She grinned at me. It was a saucy kind of grin. “We don’t get much call for beekeepers. What do you really do?”

  “For the record?”

  “Just curiosity.”

  “As little as possible.”

  “Does it pay anything?”

  “Not much.”

  “Enough to buy me a drink at the Embers at say, five-thirty?”

  “Why don’t we make it at my place at six. You’ll like my wife. Her name’s Hecuba.”

  She grinned again. “Well, I tried.” She picked up the phone and punched a button. “Mr. Longmire, the beekeeper, is here.” She listened and then she said. “He says he’s a beekeeper. I don’t.” There was another pause and then she said, “All right,” and hung up the phone. “Right through there,” she said, indicating a pair of sliding double doors.

  I started for them and she said, “Her name’s not really Hecuba, is it?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “She was named after her Uncle Priam’s first wife.”

  She was writing it all down on the form as I slid back the sliding doors and went in. What I entered wasn’t an office or even a study. Rather, it was somebody’s impression of what the number two reception room of a turn-of-the-century London club must have been like. There was a fireplace with a fire that crackled in August and for a moment I wondered why I wanted to go over and warm my hands in front of it until I realized that the temperature in the room had been brought down to about sixty or sixty-five degrees by air conditioning.